Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
6 16 2023
Do You embrace the moment fully you’re breathing in?
Yesterday I wrote about being Present and what came into my spirit today was when we are Present with God how can we be present with fear? If we’re Present with God, how can we be present with anger? Unforgiveness, idolatry, and pornography. When we are Present with the Holy Spirit, how are we present with the anxiety or all of the stress in our lives? About yesterday or tomorrow.
Sometimes, I feel like I am like my own children at times…they hear me, yet, don’t hear me. There is no escape from the myriad of challenges we face every day. Yet God offers his encouragement and hope to keep our eyes on Him and not the problem. Is 43: 1b-3a is one of my favorite scriptures. ““Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” When I am in that mindset I have a hope and a courage that is supernatural. It means I am Present with God and His promises.
But, I think many Christians often treat God like this holy object that they take off the shelf on Sunday morning or hang it around their neck like a shroud or a badge they put on their lapel. They see him as valuable… They may even see him as God. But God the Holy Spirit never came to us to be this trophy on the shelf. He came to live in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor 16:19 He wants to be Present with us in our every thought… in our every desire… in our every dream, and imagination. He wants us to tap into a thinking process that is as farther from the East as to the West. (Ps 103:12)
When was the last time you really had a happy or even a joyous moment where you were almost moved to tears? You were just so overwhelmed with emotion
that it was hard to contain the expression.
I am convinced that too many of them are not centered around the joy of the Holy Spirit, but the exuberance of something that happened. Happiness comes and goes as things happen in our lives. And it’s never there in times of trial, stress, and trouble.
But the joy of the Lord is our strength in times of trouble. Neh 8:10 Amazingly, we run to the Lord in moments of dire distress. We immediately pull him off of the shelf and cry out “Abba father:. Please help me, but he says, I have been with you from the very beginning, I’ve been trying to teach you that when you walk with me when you are pregnant with me, then you will sense and see the strength and calm and a wave of peace, far beyond what you can naturally expect. The Apple tree does not strain to push out its apples, it just flows from the abundance of its roots. “When a storm comes, and some apples are dislodged, or some branches are broken, I’ve designed it so that the strength that I have placed in it, in its very roots and in the trunk of its body will naturally flow and heal itself. That’s Me!”
In those moments of duress, when the dark storm has done its damage…God bids us to trust Him! To be Present with Him… to trust his timing, His plan, His Sovereignty, and His strength and ability to restore what the locust have eaten.
Isaiah wrote: “This is what the Lord says … ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland’” (Isaiah 43:16-19).
Just as one sparrow cannot fall to the Earth, without my permission…Matt 10:29 Or knowing when a limb is broken or when a tree is uprooted or falls down… Not one of those events happens without His awareness and without it factoring into His divine plan to work all things for good for His glory. Roman 8:28
The tree doesn’t think about the sap that gives it life. When I am Present with my children… with you… “you won’t need to think about what you have to say because I will give it to you when the time requires it”. Mark 13:11 I will be… The lamp under your feet. Ps 119:105 I will always be still present inside of you so you will be a lamp on a hill for all the world to see. Matt 5:14 Light has nothing in common with darkness. They cannot exist in the same space. When you are truly present with me and I am with you. “Do not fear, for I am Present with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. “All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish”. Is 41:11
All of this is yours when you are Present with Me! Embrace the Moment!
Matt Redman. Let there be wonder
